


Inevitabilities

by nasigorengart



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 07:40:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13806600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasigorengart/pseuds/nasigorengart
Summary: In life, there are few inevitabilities: breathing, disappointment - and loving you.Age is a funny thing. It’s a number that defines how long you’ve been alive, yet does no justice to acknowledge how many of those years you’ve actually felt alive.





	Inevitabilities

**Author's Note:**

> AAAAAAAAAA HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TO @ashfallgold!!! Also happy Vday to everyone :D I’ve done both art AND a fic (WHAT IS THIS) because your prompt just gave me ideas dude and I was seriously deprived of short n sweet soulmate AU.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

##  _I. BREATHING._

Keith couldn’t remember a time when he’d let anyone into the barbed walls he’d carefully constructed around his heart. He’d always preferred solitude, no strangers ever progressing to become familiar faces.

 _He couldn’t be lonely if he chose to be alone._  He frequently reminded himself of this fact, and it got him through most days, albeit not without a whisper of resistance from the ghost of a feeling deep in his gut that told him he longed for something more - someone more.

Age is a funny thing. It’s a number that defines how long you’ve been alive, yet does no justice to acknowledge how many of those years you’ve actually  _felt_  alive.

He began to accept his solitary fate, he even welcomed it. He managed to convince himself that he liked it better this way - he liked the fact that he’d always prefered to be alone, and not let anyone enter his protective shell to hurt him when they inevitably left.

Yet here he is. And here they are.

 _They_  being the one variable Keith hadn’t considered in his well-crafted equation. The one who hadn’t just cracked his protective barrier, but had demolished it in the most bizare and unexpected manner.

_Takashi Shirogane._

Shiro hadn’t forced his way in, hadn’t even attempted to break down the layers upon layers of carefully laid brick that Keith constructed around himself.

No -  _Keith took down the walls for him._

Brick by brick, Keith dismantled the only thing guarding him from inevitable pain; just to get nibbles of the unfamiliar, yet pleasant feeling that Shiro provided. Eventually, Keith began to crave it. It has since become an addiction - one he had been forced to satiate with increasingly large doses of Shiro’s warmth and comfort, and the fleeting feeling of safety that he carries with him, and  _oh god_  he feels like home.

So many emotions left unaddressed; so many words left unsaid.

Life has a funny way of giving you everything you never even knew you wanted, then cruelly prying it away from your desperate grasp when you begin to  _need_ it. In his case, what he needs is being catapulted into space, far, far away from him.  _Good one, life._  Although he’d expected the inevitable, it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

 

* * *

 

##  _II. DISAPPOINTMENT._

Vast and open, the desert provides Keith with more warmth and welcome than any person could. The desert is kind to him. In a life where all things left eventually, it has always been there for him. He couldn’t begin to explain the peace he has with the open stretch of sand and dust he calls home in all but name.

His true home is gone - and it’s not coming back.

 _Pilot error_  they called it. But it wasn’t. He knew it wasn’t. _Knows_  it wasn’t.

When he closes his eyes, he can still remember the moment when the flower in his heart both bloomed and withered in an excruciatingly bittersweet instant. He can still feel the strained grip of an arm around his neck; the warmth of a gloved hand gently balled up in his hair, and another pressing on the small of his back.

He can remember how hard he’d clung to them just to verify that the person in his arms was real, and that they weren’t just a fragment of his imagination - too good to be true. Keith feared that once he let go, this moment would become a mere memory, and he’d return to a reality where it wasn’t real - where he’d been dreaming this entire time.

Keith wasn’t the one to break the embrace. Nor was he the one to turn back, hesitant, flashing a smile that was subtly too tight and didn’t quite reach the eyes, gripping cold metal and preparing to plunge into an indefinite goodbye.

He made the decision to stop chasing the fragments of what once was a long time ago. He can’t tell if they’re real anymore - and frankly, he thinks that’s for the better.

Now he _could_  remember the gaping hole in his well-guarded walls, but he didn’t want to.

He lives out the rest of his days as he had his youth: guarded and isolated - only now he had a taste of a companionship that he hadn’t expected or sought out in any way, yet painfully missed nonetheless.

Age is a funny thing. It’s a number that defines how long you’ve been alive, yet does no justice to acknowledge how many of those years you’ve actually  _felt_  alive. If it did, he’d be exactly 1.748 years old - immortalised by the emptiness in his heart present since the day his home had been taken from him.

Only, he wasn’t immortal. His uneventful life mirrored the uneventful death that followed it.

  

* * *

 

##  _III. LOVING YOU._

Rhythmic squeaks echo through Keith’s head as he continues to rub a cloth on a mug that stopped needing to be cleaned a good while ago.  _It’s meditative_ , he figures, and he needs a distraction to pass the long waning hours of his too-long shift.

He trudges over to the other end of the bar and pulls a lever to release a satisfying waft of steam.

 _It’s a slow day, I probably need this more than the non-existing customers,_  he figures. So, he begins to cycle through his automated process of making a double espresso, leaving his mind to wander.

 

* * *

 

It had been a while since he’d had those dreams, but recently they’ve been coming back.

Visions of a vast, open desert that feels like home, but…  _doesn’t?_

Flashes of grey, industrial walls in some military facility; of his hands on the controls of what appears to be a fighter jet of some sort… or is it a simulator? He thinks it must be; he feels a lot younger in these dreams, definitely too young to fly an  _actual_ airborne vehicle.

The dreams come in fragments, small visual and emotional cues of something beyond his comprehension.

Streams of light cloud his vision as he finds himself staring up at an endless sky, full of glistening beauty. He reaches up to peer at a constellation through the webs of his fingers, watching in awe as the stars  glow and twinkle in a mesmerising display.

In this moment, he feels so... _at peace._

Out of all the dreams, this is the most vivid, and the most frequently recurring. He wonders why, but he’s not complaining. A small, subtle smile creeps up his cheeks.  _Well, this sure beats cleaning coffee mugs._

There’s a sudden ruffling to his right, and he jolts upright. He’s not alone.  _That’s weird,_  he thinks,  _there’s never been anyone else in these dreams before._ He tilts his head to identify the source, only to be greeted with a blur of shapes that surround him like a visual riptide. He can’t see - can’t make out any distinctive objects or people.

But he can  _feel._

All of a sudden, he is overwhelmed by multiple emotions in quick succession, then all at once: happiness, warmth, comfort, familiarity, safety… he hears, no  _feels_  someone laugh - so foreign yet familiar at the same time - and it reverberates into his very core.

Then… nothing.

Slowly, a burn begins to surface from within him and he doubles over in agony. Not the warm, homey burn of a fireplace or campfire, but the stinging fire of an acid burn. More emotions begin to drown him, slamming into him harder than the previous ones had.

Sadness. Grief. Mourning. He feels loss and emptiness, and for the first time, he questions if this really is a dream. If it is, his brain must be extremely creative, because  _it feels so real._

 

* * *

 

_GAH!_

Keith winces in shock; a splatter of steaming brown runs down the front of his grey v-neck, interrupting his reverie. _Great. Now I’ll have to clean that too._ Tugging out the towel in his apron’s back pocket, he begins to slowly clean the mess of liquid strewn across the woven cotton.

The yell of a colleague abruptly halts his cleanup, relaying an order of some obscure secret-menu latte that he couldn’t even pronounce, let alone know how to make. _I don’t get paid enough for this._  A sigh catches in his throat before he reluctantly grabs a shaker to combine the long list of ingredients he feels sick just looking at. Eyeing the mixing process intently, brows furrowed in concentration, he nearly misses the tingling of his skin as he felt eyes burn into his features.

 _Don’t people know it’s rude to stare?_ He considers vocalising this concern, but decides against it for the better good of his dignity, and presumably theirs. Instead, he opts to sneak a peek at the offender to curb his own curiosity.

_Stop._

Stop time.

Stop  _everything_  for this moment.

The moment Keith lazily shifts his gaze up and locks eyes with another pair that seem to stare into his soul - his very being. His eyes blow wide, and they  _burn_. Oh do they burn. They burn with such intensity that he wonders if he’ll ever see again, or if he’s doomed to a visually impaired eternity.

And that’s when the missing pieces fall into place - abruptly, ungracefully, and  _painfully_. Flashes of his visions zip by, blinding his eyes and crumbling his resolve. It’s exactly the same as it always had been: the facility, the simulator, the stars.

Only now there‘s a face - one that greets him with a colourful smile as he rounds the grey corner, crushing him in a hug that makes his feet leave the ground.

One that looks down at him gleaming with pride from beside where Keith sits in the simulator cockpit, “new simulation record” plastered across the screen in bright red, a delicate hand gripping his shoulder in a gesture he’s learnt to interpret as  _I’m really proud of you._

One that’s flushed from laughter to his right as he feels the familiar warmth despite the chilling evening breeze…

and Keith realises that the peace wasn’t from the stars. It was never the stars. This was never a dream.

It’s a memory.

He gradually regains his vision, his eyes adjusting back to reality. Back to…

_that face._

The face in his memories; the face that’s right in front of him and is  _real_  - is  _now,_  and is no longer the burning image of a past he’d tried  _so hard_ to forget because he thought he’d never see it again. The unexpected variable who was also an inevitability.

_The face of Takashi Shirogane._

Age is a funny thing. It’s a number that defines how long you’ve been alive, yet does no justice to acknowledge how many of those years you’ve actually _felt_  alive. If it did, he'd be exactly 13.7 seconds old, feeling the entirety of a lifetime within the mere moments since he'd met Shiro's gaze.

An achingly genuine smirk is now plastered across Shiro’s face, providing a calculated restraint that a full-blown smile couldn’t. His smirk doesn’t falter as his lips move to speak.

_“...hi”_

And in that moment Keith knew...

_...he was home._

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on [tumblr](https://nasigorengart.tumblr.com/)


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